The connector project to the Oakland airport is about 65 percent complete.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

The connector project to the Oakland airport is about 65 percent...

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The ride from BART to the Oakland Airport will take eight minutes, a reflection of decades of persistence by BART and other officials.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

The ride from BART to the Oakland Airport will take eight minutes,...

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The BART connector station construction at the Coliseum Station. The railway to the Oakland Airport is beginning to take shape with much of the overhead structure visible to passing motorists along Hegenberger Road in Oakland, Calif. on Friday Dec. 21, 2012.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

The BART connector station construction at the Coliseum Station....

Image 4 of 4

The BART connector from the Coliseum Station to the Oakland Airport is beginning to take shape with much of the overhead railway visible to passing motorists along Hegenberger Road in Oakland, Calif. on Friday Dec. 21, 2012.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

The BART connector from the Coliseum Station to the Oakland Airport...

The long line of asymmetrical concrete columns in the median of Hegenberger Road, some topped with a half-mile of white steel trestle, are a sure reminder that there will soon be a new way to get to the Oakland International Airport.

After years of hoping, planning and fighting, BART's long-awaited and controversial Oakland Airport Connector is taking shape. Construction crews have been working on the 3.2-mile link between the Coliseum/Oakland Airport BART Station and the airport since late 2010. It will replace AirBART, a shuttle bus operated by the Port of Oakland.

"We're making a lot of progress," said Luna Salaver, a BART spokeswoman. "By this time in 2014, people will be able to take the connector to Oakland airport."

The connector will not be a BART extension or use the transit system's familiar trains or technology. Instead, it will be a modern cable car, using a motorized cable to pull automated and driver-less three-car trains between BART and the airport in eight minutes. Doppelmayr/Garaventa, a Swiss and Austrian company, designed and will operate the system. The firm has constructed similar "people mover" systems in Las Vegas, between the Mandalay Bay and Excalibur casinos, and at Pearson International Airport in Toronto and other locales around the world.

Construction crews have planted the columns for the connector along a route snaking west from the BART station on the edge of the Coliseum parking lots, down the median of Hegenberger Road to Pardee Road, where a short subway is being built, alongside the airport access roads at ground level then up again on elevated tracks through the parking lots to a station between the airport's two terminals.

All of the columns and foundations were finished in July, marking the halfway point in construction. Scott Yamasaki, an Oakland airport spokesman, said the most recent construction update estimated that 65 percent of the work has been completed.

Workers are installing the steel trestles, which serve as guideways or tracks, atop the columns, and building the stations and maintenance center. Next they'll install the electrical and mechanical systems that pull and control the cable. Construction is scheduled to be completed in late 2013, allowing at least nine months for testing, Salaver said. She said the $484 million project is on time for a September 2014 opening and is on budget.

"It's coming along," Yamasaki said. "It's exciting to see all this construction."

A connection between BART and the Oakland airport has been discussed since 1970, before the transit system started operating. Subsequent studies were done in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. The project moved closer to reality in 2000 when Alameda County voters approved a transportation sales tax that steered $89 million to the connection.

BART struggled to find the rest of the funding, stalling the project, then lost $70 million of federal money in 2010 when federal officials decided BART had not done enough to get comments from minority and low-income communities. That ruling came after complaints from project critics, who said the money dedicated for the airport connector could be better spent on other regional transit needs and that a cheaper but fancier bus shuttle would suffice as an airport link. Regional officials found enough state funding and federal loans to make up the difference, however, and construction started in 2010.

About 750,000 passengers a year take AirBART buses that can require frustrating waits while passengers drag their luggage aboard and scrounge for $3 fares. The ride typically takes about 20 minutes but can vary widely depending on traffic.

BART and airport officials project that 3.2 million passengers a year will pay between $4 and $6 each way to ride the Oakland Airport Connector with the number rising to 4.9 million if a fourth car is added to trains. BART officials say it will take passengers 15 minutes including transfer and waiting time to get from their BART train to the airport terminal. Connector trains are expected to depart every four minutes.

"It will be nice," Salaver said, "for both airports to have a seamless connection to BART."